Waiting is the hardest part

[arebelspy]

Interesting article about waiting for rewards and how in the middle they can seem further off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/youre-so-self-controlling.html?pagewanted=1

I'll leave you to consider how that plays into FI.

[gooki]

Thanks, one more reason to break my FI goal into smaller time specific goals.

[Zamboni]

This is why I make colorful graphs of my financially situation as a function of time.  As long as I can look back and see progress, a few bumps or slowness at a present moment doesn't dissuade me from staying on course.

I've learned that many people hate graphs, though, which is too bad, because graphs rule.

[Nords]

Interesting article about waiting for rewards and how in the middle they can seem further off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/youre-so-self-controlling.html?pagewanted=1

I'll leave you to consider how that plays into FI.

I'm glad to see an article that pulls together all those kids' marshmallow studies on delayed gratification.  I'd remembered reading that some kids had learned to eat the marshmallow now because their parents had been so unreliable.

But this quote:

“There are lots of situations, probably the majority of situations, in the real world,” Mr. Kable told me, “where waiting longer is actually a valid cue that the reward is getting further and further away.”

reminds me of "Just one more year!" syndrome.  Of course that delayed gratification is self-imposed...

[lentilman]

Ha - the article was 3 pages long and my browser was taking some time to load the third page.  After a few seconds I didn't feel that I was getting closer to having it load so I opened another site in another tab.

Then I started to think this was a psychological test that the authors programmed into the article - to see what percent of people would wait and how long they would wait for the last page to load.

Eventually I reloaded the page.  But did I fail the test?

[Lucy_83]

hahaha! That would have been pure genius but for me it loaded just fine, so I don't think it was intentional. :)

[Gundy]

I think that this article drives to the core of what makes mustachianism so appealing. Before there was this vague notion of depriving yourself now for a fuzzy payout in the distant future. All that was promised was that if you saved diligently for 45 years you wouldn't be eating cat food in retirement.

On the other hand, MMM comes along and tells you that not only will retirement be fun and exciting, but you can get there in the next ten years. How motivating is that? And then others take it a step further by tracking the growth in their dividend payouts, which makes the feedback even more immediate.

I think that is the reason that once people really believe in the possibility of early retirement they become even more motivated. Especially as their progress gathers steam. Good article.

[tooqk4u22]

But this quote:

“There are lots of situations, probably the majority of situations, in the real world,” Mr. Kable told me, “where waiting longer is actually a valid cue that the reward is getting further and further away.”

reminds me of "Just one more year!" syndrome.  Of course that delayed gratification is self-imposed...

Agreed, but I think I am suffering a bit from the one more year syndrome......or more likely the inverse feeling of "the first $100k is the hardest" such that "the last $100k is the hardest" in my view.....days seem like years and even though I am closer than I have ever been I feel farther away from it at the same time.